UNITA

The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) is a conservative and Christian democratic political party in Angola, founded on 13 March 1966 by independence activist and guerrilla Jonas Savimbi. The party was founded as a Maoist communist party, and it was allied to the MPLA during the Angolan struggle for independence from Portugal until 1975. China supplied weapons to the movement during the anti-colonial war, but UNITA would distance itself from Marxism-Leninism after independence, declaring that it sought to create an Angola ruled by democratic socialism. From 1975 to 2002, UNITA fought against the Marxist MPLA in the Angolan Civil War, and it later dropped its socialist stance in favor of free market capitalism and conservatism, allying with South Africa and the United States against the Soviet and Cuban-backed MPLA. Savimbi's death in battle in 2002 led to UNITA abandoning armed struggle and becoming a political party, holding 32/220 National Assembly seats in 2017.